How can I restore UID 0

By stevenwhite on 26 May 2008 at 01:21 UTC

Drupal v6.2 here.

When I was new to Drupal (a month or more ago) someone told me that it would probably be safe to just go ahead and delete node 0 since my admin node is "1" anyway. Well, I did and then 15 minutes later, another poster says that I should not have deleted node 0. So I was scratching my head but soon put it behind me.

Fast forward a little more than a month later and I was doing some configuration today in...

Home » Administer » Site building » Blocks

at the URL.../blogs/admin/build/block/configure/profile/0

and saw the following message on a pink background at the top...

"warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/iloveblogging/public_html/blogs/includes/form.inc on line 1181."

I was just wondering, how do I recreate node 0 so I can correct this error -or- is there some Drupal repair utility that will allow me to recreate it?. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm not sure what to do now.

- Steve

Comments

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 01:23

I assume you mean UID 0 and not node 0

removing UID 0 means you removed the anon user

install a fresh drupal, inspect the user table to see how this UID is formed then recreate on your production DB.

Sorry, yes, UID 0.

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 01:41

Sorry, yes, UID 0.

I've done a great deal of customizing over the last month so even if I do a DB restore after installing a fresh copy of Drupal, it's going to be nearly impossible to get all of my many changes and customizations back. Is it possible to do this another way or do I really even need UID 0 at all?. Also, I'm not a PHP programmer and know only a small amount about MySQL server commands so I'm hoping there is a quick and easy way around this...maybe insert some MySQL code into phpMyAdmin?.

Thanks so much for your reply and help.

- Steve

From the top of my head,

alex commented 26 May 2008 at 01:48

From the top of my head, assuming you are not using table prefixes, insert into users (uid) values (0); should do it for you.
If you are using prefixes, you need to change table name accordingly.

HillsWeb.com

Hills Web

I tried the code you

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 03:29

I tried the code you provided but I still got the error message and even if I install a fresh copy of Drupal and then restore the database, the restored database is still going to reflect the same missing UID 0 isn't it?.

As far as prefixes are concerned, my DB name looks like this: "iloveblogging_drpl1". Is this a prefix and what should I do now?. I'm not even sure how to undo the code I just added.

- Steve

Yes you're right about database restoration and missing user #0

alex commented 26 May 2008 at 04:15

So let's stick with the correct way of doing it;)
In your drupal site configuration file there is a setting for table prefix. You can also run show tables like "%users" in phpmyadmin and find your users table name.

After you find the correct name, you can modify my query and run it.

Don't worry about "undoing" my code yet ;)

HillsWeb.com

Hills Web

Thanks for sticking it out

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 04:44

Thanks for sticking it out with me on this. Hopefully, I'll get to the bottom of it before it's all said and done with your help :).

Ok, now when you say "drupal site configuration file" are you referring to...

A) A file within one of Drupal's folders and if so, which one and what is the exact name of the file?
B) An option within the Drupal admin panel?
C) An option within Drupal's database via phpMyAdmin?

Also, when you say "show tables like "%users"", I'm not quite sure which part of phpMyAdmin I am supposed to copy/paste this to.

As an aside, I clicked on the "SQL" tab within phpMyAdmin and that is where I pasted your code and it said that the table row had been created but when I checked the UID section, I could not find "0" but instead, it started at "1" (ie; BROWSE>USERS>UID>1 admin).

- Steve

never mind the config file

alex commented 26 May 2008 at 05:04

In your phpmyadmin, you can see all the tables and their content.
If it said the row was inserted, it probably was. You can find the users table in phpmyadmin and see that the user 0 is there. The problem is elsewere then.

HillsWeb.com

Hills Web

See, here's the thing (just

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 05:14

See, here's the thing (just to give you a little history here and to be more specific)...

When I first started using Drupal about a month ago, I did a MySQL database check via CPanel to see if there were any tables that needed to be repaired before I did a DB backup via phpMyAdmin.

I did see a number of errors and so I ran a repair.

All errors except one were repaired but no matter how many times I ran the repair, there was one table that kept giving me an error and it said something like "auto-increment error user 0" (or something like that).

So, naturally, not wanting to do a DB backup with errors in it, I posted about it on the forum here and was told that I could probably just safely delete it (which I did). Then, about 15 minutes later, another person posts telling me that I should not have done that.

So there's a bit of history on how all of this started. Now, my install of Drupal runs good, looks good, backs up and restores good and is fully customized and I am very proud of it and all of this with no "UID 0" so I'm really wondering if I even *need* UID 0 in the first place but since I am told that I DO, I would really like to recreate it if at all possible.

Thanks for listening and for any further help I can get with this. I very much appreciate it.

- Steve

Most likely your current

alex commented 26 May 2008 at 06:31

Most likely your current problem has nothing to do with user 0

HillsWeb.com

Hills Web

PHPMyAdmin errors out

avskip commented 25 August 2008 at 00:32

I have the same problem (no UID 0) except I never knowingly removed mine. When I try your SQL code in PHPMyAdmin, it returns a "File too large" error. I've also tried doing an insert to try to get it back in, and PHPMyAdmin doesn't like that either (headers already sent - about half a screen worth).

Is there another way, perhaps with PHP code to insert UID 0?? I'm at a loss here. Drupal version 5.10

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Skip

It's apparently a PHPMyAdmin

avskip commented 25 August 2008 at 00:51

It's apparently a PHPMyAdmin problem. I had forgotten about using the CLI for MySQL. So I SSH'd in and did an insert using MySQL and it worked fine.

I now have my UID 0 back.

Appears to be a Drupal Profile bug.

alan d. commented 26 May 2008 at 12:25

Just tried the link and ran into the exact same error. I guessing this error goes away after you save the block configuration?

Changing the line 155 in profile.module to this fixes the problem for me:

<?php
      '#default_value' => variable_get('profile_block_author_fields', null),
?>

<?php
      '#default_value' => variable_get('profile_block_author_fields', array()),
?>

The problem is that the variable_get function should return an array, and when this returns NULL, it causes the error in the checkbox theming function. It is fixed in head.

Alan Davison
www.caignwebs.com.au

Alan Davison

Interesting

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 15:31

Interesting observation/assessment. Very helpful indeed. Which folder/file contains the code you posted above?. I would be very interested in trying your example.

Thanks, Steve

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 15:33

as it says, the profile.module which is in the modules folder

Oh ok, I was thinking

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 15:42

Oh ok, I was thinking "profile module" being just a generic term to describe some module within Drupal. I didn't know that it was the actual name of the file nor was it stated by the previous poster which folder it was located in (still feeling my way around this). Thanks for filling me in.

Finally, this still does not resolve the issue of restoring of UID 0 so really, I get rid of the message but I am still missing UID 0. Does anyone here at all know how to restore it?. Perhaps install Drupal on another machine and them copy UID 0 and "paste" it into the original Drupal installation?.

I'm stumped here...

- Steve

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 15:43

Perhaps install Drupal on another machine and them copy UID 0 and "paste" it into the original Drupal installation?.

This is what I suggested in my first comment. http://drupal.org/node/262669#comment-856989

Yes, I know you did but it's

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 15:49

Yes, I know you did but it's just that I'm not exactly a genius when it comes to programming/tweaking PHP/MySQL so once I create the fresh install, what am I supposed to do in order to get UID 0 back since (as I stated earlier) once I do a DB restore, it's just going to take me right back to the missing UID 0 issue. In other words, my DB backup does not have the UID 0...it's missing...gone...kaput.

- Steve

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 16:13

I'm simply trying to guide you to inspect a fresh DB with the UID = 0 and then recreate what you see on the fresh setup in the user table on your own. Noone stated to do a DB restore.

That said, Have you even checked your user table to insure that UID 0 is indeed missing ? because running the update given by Hillsweb in http://drupal.org/node/262669#comment-857001 should have recreated UID 0 in your users table in the DB

are you sure you ran that query in phpmyadmin ?

browing the UID 0 row

mode
sort
threshold
created
access
login
& status should also be 0

timezone and data should be checked "null"

Ok, I assumed that I was to

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 16:42

Ok, I assumed that I was to install a fresh copy of Drupal and then upload my DB (which would only re-add the missing UID 0). As a non-PHP geek, I'm not sure how I would recreate UID 0 anyway after installing the fresh copy.

Looking at: phpMyAdmin>_drpl1>Structure>Users>Browse> and then looking at the UID column, I don't see a "0" (it starts at "1" but there is no UID "0"). UID 1 is listed as the "admin".

Hmmm...now that I look at your list again, I don't see any of those things so maybe I'm not even in the right section...

- Steve

Just tried the code you

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 15:59

Just tried the code you provided and it worked...no more error. Thanks :). Now, if I could only recreate the elusive "UID 0" I would be a happy camper.

- Steve

Confim the "UID0" error. I

Anonymous (not verified) commented 26 May 2008 at 16:15

Confim the "UID0" error. However, with my current install I don't have it. I can't remember if the error showed in a 6.1 install or a 6.2 install. Currently running version 6.2 with virgin data.

@stevenwhite -
Did you by any change upgrade your database from 6.1 to 6.2? Or did you start from 6.2?

It will help track this down.

I used Fantastico to install

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 16:45

I used Fantastico to install Drupal v6.1. Then, I upgraded (manually) to v.6.2 using the file offered at Drupal.org.

On my server, however, I did everything manually (created the DB, installed v6.2, etc).

Let me check and see if I am lacking UID 0 on the server machine (I know I deleted it on my host)...

- Steve

No, I just checked on the

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 16:54

No, I just checked on the server machine and it starts at UID 1 as well but then again, I used the DB backup containing the missing UID 0 to restore Drupal on the server machine just like I did to restore the one on the host.

The DB backup is missing the UID 0 so it looks like no matter what I do (unless I start completely from scratch and lose EVERYTHING) I'm never going to get it back again. Of course, unless there is some way to do an insertion of the missing UID 0 into MySQL.

- Steve

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 17:27

INSERT INTO users (uid) VALUES ('0');

try using the above in phpmyadmin to restore your UID 0

backup your DB before doing so.

Thanks VeryMisunderstood.

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 17:41

Thanks VeryMisunderstood. Just wondering though, do I insert this under the "SQL" tab (in that little box)?. I'm using phpMyAdmin. I see a box that says...

"Run SQL query/queries on database iloveblogging_drpl1"

- Steve

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 18:11

yes

Something came up but I'll

stevenwhite commented 26 May 2008 at 19:50

Something came up but I'll try this shortly. Thanks for your help (all of you). Incidentally, how do you PM other people here?. I have this feature enabled in my own install of Drupal and it works pretty good.

- Steve

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vm commented 26 May 2008 at 19:50

There is no PM module installed on drupal.org and I don't expect there to be. users who don't mind being contacted through Drupal.org use the contact tab on that users profile.

used phpmyadmin

yesct commented 18 November 2008 at 10:46

I'm really glad to find this thread!

I had a problem related to: http://drupal.org/node/204411

and I fixed it by using phpmyadmin and edited the row that had the anonymous user in it (the row was still in the table, but during export/import of the database the autoincrement changed the id number from 0 to (3 or 4 or something)... so I just browsed the table in phymyadmin, then edited the row, and changed the number to 0.

Thanks! I love this community!

Cathy Theys
YesTrainingAndEducation.com

Don't forget rid 1 too

rgammon commented 27 March 2009 at 02:40

Had similar problem along this line.

Don't forget in user_roles table to insert uid 0 and rid 1, also. This ties user 0 to the anonymous role!

Thank you!

halfabrain commented 8 October 2009 at 11:47

Thanks rgammon. That's exactly what my issue was. I had the UID of 0 but not in the user_roles. Cheers H

Thanks!

nerdoc commented 7 May 2010 at 15:46

Same problem was here.
I had created a view of users, and it always showed an empty user line. Which I (dumbly) deleted per "delete" link. Bad Idea, that was the anonymous user.
Then suddenly some nodes were sort of "gone" - thye was visible in views lists, but not accessible any more as node itself.

Thanks to the community here, the commands above repaired it:
I took an old backup .sql file of the database and extracted the followind line:

INSERT INTO `users` VALUES ('0','','','','0','0','0','','','0','0','0','0','0',null,'','','',null,'');

Then I manually changed the uid to 0 (because the autoincrement feature had put it at 142)

then I created an entry in user_role with uid 0 and rid 1;
that was it.

Thank you again, very much.
Christian